LE DOUANIER ROUSSEAU: JUNGLES IN PARIS

PARIS, 30 May 2006 A
fascinating exhibition
presenting 50 important works by the French painter, Henri Rousseau (1844 - 1910), better known
as Le Douanier Rousseau, is currently on view at the
Grand Palais in Paris. The exhibition, which includes works from Europe, Japan,
Russia and America, will go to Washington, D.C. in July.

Rousseau was a self-taught artist, a humble employee of the municipal
customs office, who came to painting late in life. He was born poor, and
died in poverty, recognition of his undoubted talent coming after his
death; Although half of his works concentrated on views of Paris and its
suburbs, including the metal bridges, factory chimneys and telegraph poles
he saw from his place of work, he has become legendary for his jungle
scenes. Contrary to popular belief, these exotic works, shown alongside
his urban landscapes, portraits and allegories, were all composed in the
French capital which he never left.

He never went to the tropical forests he portrayed, but went to see his
lions and tigers in the Paris zoos. He strolled around the Jardin
d'Acclimatation and saw stuffed animals in the Natural History Museum.
Inspiration also came from photographs, post-cards and his imagination was
caught by illustrated travel books, all of which are on display. Copies of
the magazine, Le Petit Journal, containing brightly coloured
engravings from the Sunday colour supplement found in his studio after his
death, gave him as well as the general public the impression that distant
lands were accessible and his fantasies were very much a product of the
time.

The exhibition contains a whole series of monkey paintings, jungle
scenes populated by apes and chimpanzees like those he must have seen at
the Jardin des Plantes and show quite friendly animals who happily jump
from branch to branch. But these are the exceptions, for the rest of his
jungle pictures concentrate on the cruelty of nature.

Combat de tigre et de bufle, is menacing. One animal is eating
the other and even the bananas hanging down seem threatening. And indeed,
as one looks around, all the pictures in one room portrayed something or
someone eating or being eaten. Moreover, in Nègre attaqué par un
jaguar, we are given the impression that if the man wasn't grabbed by
the tiger, then he'd have been strangled by the trees. The painting
contains something absolutely pitiless. Cheval attaqué par un
jaguar continues in the same vein. It is also quite merciless, for in
a jungle clearing, a grey horse with a white mane is being devoured by the
jaguar against a brilliant background of exotic flowers.

Apparently, the term,"Fauvism" dates from when Le Lion ayant faim
se jette sur l'antilope (The Hungry Lion) was shown at the
Salon d'Automne in 1905. What makes this painting particularly nasty is
the almost idyllic setting of luxurious vegetation with a beautiful red
sunset behind, and a lion dripping in blood is devouring an antelope
while other animals can be seen lurking in the trees, waiting their turn.
In the centre of the work is an owl with blood drooling down from his
cruel, curved beak. These works are all hard, cruel and implacable,
excepting one, Le Rêve (The Dream), one of his most
famous and most beautiful of all his paintings, completed the year before
he died.

Le Rêve (The Dream) shows his childhood sweetheart,
Yadwigha, lounging naked in the jungle on a Louis- Philippe style sofa. No
attempt of any kind of perspective has been made, and here an elephant,
there two tigers, peer through flowers three or four times larger
than life, animals and nature all charmed by the music of the flutist,
himself no larger than the brightly coloured snake which slithers
past. The scene takes place by the light of a silvery
moon.

What does make this exhibition interesting however, is the fact that it
reveals Rousseau's sources of inspiration. One can study his album of wild
animals and see the outlines he traced and feel free to admire or
criticise his work, bearing in mind that in 1904 many of these pictures
came under virulent attack. He was accused by press and public alike for
what they considered a lack of skill and it wasn't until later that his
lack of perspective became admired by other artists such as Picasso,
Kandinsky and Delaunay.

Hailed as a precursor to primitivism and surrealism, where the familiar
becomes strange, and the strange, familiar, his figures are far removed
from everyday life. I don't like his hatchet faced woman with hands twice
the size of the little cat cowering in the corner of a work, nor yet
Pour feter bébé, where a monstrous child dangles its father in
its hand, like a puppet. Other paintings, including Un soir de
carnaval, create a sense of unease. What, with Rousseau, looks
poetic, peaceful and serene is not. His work disturbs in a most unpleasant
way, the eerie atmosphere pervading his earlier works forerunning his
pitiless jungle scenes.

But then, I have never liked Le Douanier Rousseau's paintings and this
exhibition, excellent as it is, with the jungle paintings at the centre
does little to change my mind. Much of what we see could be
illustrations from some particularly nasty children's book...........
don't go into that forest, dear, there's a monster waiting to gobble you
up! These works for me were, and remain,
curiosities.

Le Douanier Rousseau, which was presented at the Tate Modern in London
over the winter, and which will remain at the Galeries Nationales du
Grand Palais in Paris until 19 June, will be opening at the National Gallery
of Washington on 16 July 2006.